By Rowan Walrath - Life Sciences Reporter, Boston Business Journal The pharmaceutical industry is the Boston area's signature industry. It's also water-intensive, contributing to the problem of water scarcity at a time when the region is working to become more climate-friendly. Biotech research and manufacturing rely heavily on water for just about everything: chemical reactions, refrigeration, irrigation and cleaning. Pharma companies already have taken note of the problem, especially in regions where water stress is high, such as California, and where communities depend on the Colorado River. Some are taking steps to reduce their impact, but sustainability experts want more ambitious -- and more measurable -- goals. Water-conservation efforts are taking place in Greater Boston, home to one of the highest concentrations of biopharma research in the world. "As climate change marches on, water availability becomes more unpredictable," said Aaron Bernstein, who studies the effects of climate change on public health at Harvard University. "Climate change is the straw on the camel's back." Bernstein has recently split his time between being co-director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; directing an environmental health center at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and practicing as a pediatrician at Boston Children's Hospital. So it makes sense that one of his foremost preoccupations is how healthcare -- and specifically, the development of pharmaceuticals -- uses such an invaluable environmental resource. He said it's a problem drugmakers must address before it becomes a problem for their businesses, and the communities in which they operate. "In Boston, we've got pharmaceutical research labs left, right and center," Bernstein said. "We have, historically, lots of water relative to other places, but the real issue is you don't want to be in a situation where companies are fighting for water with people who need to drink it." It's difficult to quantify exactly how much water the biopharma sector uses. In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency, which groups biotech and pharmaceutical in with other industrial sectors, estimates that industrial water use as a whole is more than 18.2 billion gallons a day. Pharma companies have a few tools at their disposal in their efforts to minimize water use. For instance, both Swiss drug giant Roche and German drugmaker Merck KGaA take into account the World Resources Institute's Aqueduct. Roche also uses the World Wildlife Fund's Water Risk Filter. "We map all of our facilities against that (World Resources Institute) index," said Jeffrey Whitford, vice president of sustainability and social business innovation at MilliporeSigma, a Burlington-based subsidiary of Merck KGaA. "The good news is, we don't have any sites in these water-stress regions. We are not in arid climates, where access to water is a big challenge, but we still want to be responsible." Overall, Merck KGaA estimates it withdrew 13.2 million cubic meters of water in 2022. That's down slightly from 13.5 million in 2021. Measuring such consumption is the bedrock of any corporate sustainability plan that includes water. Merck KGaA is steadily moving toward a 10% reduction in water withdrawals by 2025, working from a baseline it set in 2020. Roche has set an even more ambitious goal: a 15% reduction between 2020 and 2025. But progress can be slow. Roche withdrew 14.9 million cubic meters of water in 2020, increased that to 15.4 million in 2021, then returned to its baseline of 14.9 million in 2022. Like Merck KGaA, Roche is currently undertaking some projects to become more sustainable, including at Boston-based Foundation Medicine, which it acquired in 2018. Foundation Medicine, which makes cancer diagnostics, has a new headquarters under construction in the Seaport District. The builders are targeting LEED Platinum certification, "due in part to achieving all available LEED points in the Indoor Water Use Reduction category, ensuring efficient use of water resources," a Roche spokesperson said. That involves installing low-flow fixtures for restrooms, showers and pantry kitchen sinks, and using reclaimed stormwater in all restrooms. MilliporeSigma has facilities around New England, including in Burlington, Danvers and Jaffrey, New Hampshire. Another of Merck KGaA'a subsidiaries, EMD Serono, has sites in Rockland and Billerica. In Jaffrey, MilliporeSigma is currently undertaking a project that will cut water usage at the site by about two-thirds in less than five years by reusing water that would typically go back into the municipal water system after being treated. That means technicians at the site, which primarily deals in device manufacturing, will have to draw "new" water fewer times. Using so-called "gray water" -- water that's been used, purified, then used again -- like Merck KGaA is doing comes with its own challenges, however. "We're increasingly looking at using water that's been used once," Bernstein said. "That technology is there, but it is not free." Zero-liquid discharge (ZLD) systems that fully remove water from concentrate streams run their operators millions of dollars a year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. And then there's the concern about running afoul of regulatory agencies, which have high standards for the purity of water used in drug manufacturing, as the authors of a 2020 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Water Resources and Industry point out. "These aren't golf courses. These are strictly regulated," said Stephen Mulloney, a spokesperson for the Boston Water and Sewer Commission who was a policy director at the trade group MassBio from 1998 to 2009. "FDA has pages and pages on cGMP (current Good Manufacturing Practices). A batch of biologics, were something to happen to it, could cost millions and millions of dollars. If there are ways that people could be efficient and still meet their needs and goals and save water, that's certainly something we would embrace." Not all pharmaceutical companies have laid out clearly measurable goals, even if they've declared their intent to become responsible stewards of water. Bernstein says statements by Novartis AG (NYSE: NVS) and Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) are both overly vague. Novartis has several locations in Cambridge, while Pfizer has labs in Cambridge. Pfizer also has a manufacturing facility in Andover that it recently expanded. Novartis says it plans to halve its water consumption by 2025, working from a 2016 baseline. Pfizer says it's working to minimize water withdrawal, mitigate impact on water quality from its operations and supply chain and manage discharges into water, but the company offers no concrete figures. Bernstein worries that these are not "measurable goals." Both Novartis and Pfizer declined interviews. Without oversight from local or international authorities, the measurement of water consumption tends to fall to individual companies. Mulloney, of the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, said the city does not track water use by biopharmaceutical companies. The City of Cambridge Water Department is not provided any information on what a building is used for, so categories are not tracked, according to a spokesperson there. The city of Somerville, a fast-growing biotech corridor, breaks down water usage into residential and commercial, but does not have any more specific data. A spokesperson for the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority said the wholesaler does not "have or track that type of information." That's not to say such tracking is out of the question going forward -- it's just not a priority, Mulloney said. Local water authorities are simply not as well-equipped as agencies like the FDA to tell pharma companies what to do with their water. Whitford, at MilliporeSigma, foresees a potential future where water use goes the way of carbon emissions: The private sector and government authorities alike will simply have to start paying closer attention as pressure on resources builds. The City of Boston recently passed a law requiring large buildings to gradually cut their greenhouse gas emissions over the next three decades, and lab operators, with their specialized HVAC systems and round-the-clock research schedules, are already struggling to meet the new standards. "When you're looking at this bigger story around sustainability, there's such a focus on the carbon dioxide element," Whitford said. "We're going to be in this position in a couple of decades -- fill in the blank, on water or biodiversity -- unfortunately, related to all the different areas of sustainability, where we have to pay attention to more things."